Mending Families
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Girls Girls Girls tag: Families are meant to be together. Including, in their own way, Winchesters.


**Mending Families**  
 **K Hanna Korossy**

Joe couldn't believe she was back.

There were differences: a year was a long time to be gone. And Caroline's story, about being a "vessel" for an angel named Hannah? He'd write it off a sort of breakdown, but some of the details she'd shared… Well, he'd be talking to their pastor about that one because, honestly, he wasn't sure what to think.

But she said that guy…Castiel? Hadn't been anything to her, that she hadn't even broken her vows with him. And the way she said it, so different from the stranger he'd confronted at the motel earlier that day, so much like _his_ Caroline, almost convinced him she was telling the truth.

That night laid the remainder of his doubts to rest.

They still had a lot to talk about. Joe wasn't an idiot; he knew they couldn't just go back to the way things had been.

But he had Caroline back, and that was the beginning of all the rest.

00000

He'd been wrong.

Castiel sat motionless on the park bench and reconsidered everything he'd recently done.

Hannah's arguments, about pulling all the angels back into line, had made sense at the time. They'd been scattered sheep without a leader, and while he was not that leader, Castiel had agreed they needed order again, that the rogues and wanderers had to be brought back into the fold. Even after Adina and Daniel chose death over returning, he had clung to that belief.

Then Hannah's vessel's husband showed up, making a claim on his wife.

 _You did the right thing_ , Castiel had told Hannah after she turned the man away. Their mission was more important. Their vessels knew their roles.

But he'd been wrong.

He'd broken up Jimmy Novak's family. Hannah's vessel Caroline had deeply hurt her husband. Vows made before God had been torn asunder by angels. And that…that was not right.

There was an argument for letting the rebellious angels go. He'd been one himself, and a fierce proponent of free will. It was a paradox he had to think through at some point.

"Hey, buddy? You okay?"

Castiel looked up at the man—a jogger—who was peering down worriedly at him.

"No," Castiel replied, and stood and walked away. It was time to start being again what he'd been made for, to look after the humans in his care and to try to repair the damage to the Novaks he'd unwittingly inflicted.

00000

"Baby, I'm home."

He hadn't called ahead, not wanting to hear it if she didn't want him back.

"Daddy!"

Sean came running out of the kitchen at full speed, huge grin on his face, barely waiting for Cole to put his bags down before jumping into his arms.

Seeing Cole up close, his son wrinkled his nose. Little hands rubbed over the Band-Aid on his forehead. "Daddy, you got hurt!"

"I'm okay, kiddo." He couldn't hug Sean tight enough. "Just fell and banged myself up some. You been a good boy for Mom?"

"He's been _pretty_ good."

Cole looked up to see Liz leaning against the kitchen doorway, watching them with a smile but serious eyes.

He drank in the sight of her a minute, then focused on his son again. "Pretty good, huh?"

"Casper dug up the veg'tables, not me!"

Casper was snuffling happily around Cole's feet, the dog oblivious to being slandered.

"I'll bet." Cole gave his son a quick kiss and set him down. "Why don't you let Casper out back, huh? I gotta say hi to your mom."

"Okay!" Sean ran off, Casper torn between him and Cole for a moment before following the boy.

He tried a smile for Liz, feeling it pull at the scab on his lip. "It's over, babe."

She pushed off the doorjamb, twisting her wedding ring as she stood there, her nervous tell. "For real? Because you look like Hell, Cole."

"I'm okay." He came closer, encouraged when she didn't pull back. "I'm done. No more training, no more revenge. Just you, me, and Sean."

His wife's strength was what had originally drawn him to her, but right now she looked uncertain, small. "Did you…?"

"No. It wasn't…" He still wasn't sure what. Demons? Monsters? He'd seen enough to believe Dean Winchester, even over his own experience, over a decade of hate. But Cole couldn't even begin to explain it. "The guy's gone," he finally said. The man he'd wanted had never even existed, apparently, and that was what he'd focus on, not what Cole's dad might've been. "No more point in lookin'."

Her eyes got watery then, and she stepped forward, arms raised. "Oh, babe, I'm sorry."

Being in her arms let him breathe again.

Dean had talked to him, before Cole left. Told him about how he lost his own family. How he'd sold his soul—once even literally!—during years of facing evil. How Cole was an idiot if he blew his own chance.

Holding Liz, he knew Winchester was right.

First chance he got, he'd toss those books he had about demons. Erase his database on Winchester. Start being a real dad and husband.

The only wrongs he had left to right were here in his home.

00000

Dean hadn't lied to Cole.

Sam knew that, no matter what Dean said. Or at least, Dean hadn't lied completely: he was sure his story would end bloody.

Sam glanced at his brother's impassive profile as Dean drove, then away again before his brother looked back. If Sam had to guess, he would have said Dean had believed in that fate since his teen years, since it became clear to him that he would have no other life than this. He'd been able to play it down as he charmed women and babied his car and indulged his love for fat, salt, and pie. Enough to fool Sam for a long time. But all the losses, the defeats, _Hell_ , had punched holes in his brother's armor, and Sam had seen the truth for some time now. Long before he vowed to drag Dean to that light at the end of the tunnel.

Before he'd turned on Dean in anger, and Dean had died, and woken up a demon.

He'd watched Dean watch Cole drive off. There were no hard feelings on Sam's part; he got it, and had had far worse done to him than Cole had in his desperation. All Sam cared about in that moment was the mix of wistfulness and sadness on his brother's face as he watched Trenton go back to his family, his happy life.

He'd meant it about saving Dean, though, Gadreel and the Mark and an attempted hammer to the head aside. Meant it then, and even more so now. He would save Dean, or they would both die trying. No more leaving each other alone and shattered.

But any attempt to say that now would be deflected at best, turn Dean defensive and angry at worst. It wouldn't make a bit of difference, and would totally defeat the purpose.

So Sam did something else he'd also learned over the years that his brother would hear and accept.

"So, you gonna keep using that dating app?"

Dean's shoulders came down an inch. "I don't know, maybe? Kinda cooled me off about the whole thing."

" _This_ is what cooled you off about going hundreds of miles to hook up with a girl you never even met?" Sam said with a smirk.

"Hey, she still wasn't a Bruce."

"This time."

"Yeah, and when's the last time you got laid?" Dean asked pointedly.

The perfect opening. Sam gave it just the right amount of nonchalance. "Okay. Let's hit a bar on the way back. Do it old school."

Dean peered at him suspiciously. "You an' me? Beers an' broads?"

"Gee," Sam said dryly, "I can't imagine why you have trouble picking up women with that attitude."

"Shut up, I don't have trouble picking up women."

Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, fine. We agree on the bar, and last one to score gets breakfast in the morning."

 _Scoring,_ in Sam's case, often meant finding a girl he could have a good conversation with, maybe go on a walk with. It was stakes he could agree to. "Deal."

Dean was grinning, already anticipating the evening's activities. His fingers were soon tapping along on the steering wheel to the song on the radio.

Sam sat back with his own smile. A night on the town: the Winchester version of family reconnecting. Without either of them ruining it with a single soul-baring word.

And if Dean was the one who got breakfast the next day even though he'd left first the night before, that was just his way of saying he knew what Sam had done there and appreciated it.

 **The End**


End file.
